Connections

The connections I see in the theorist is that they are all child centered. Dewey wanted the child's interest to be included in the curriculum. Piaget wanted students to do things on their own. Montessori allowed students to learn through what interested them and included materials that were sized to fit the student needs. The theorists all empower students to learn on a deeper level and hope they will have critical thinking to be good citizens of the world. Allowing the student to learn at a critical thinking level instead of superficial. Teaching in schools has been taught mainly by rote learning that has students regurgitating information for a test. The theorist are more interested in critical thinking and an understanding that can be applied to practical situations. If a student is allowed to learn through situations that interest them, then the student will be more focused on discovering the context and concepts behind the lesson.

Hope

     A word that came to me while watching The Boys of Baraka was hope.  The boys in the film had so much hope for a greater future.  They wanted to make something of their lives and become something more.  When Richard was talking about his father in jail he said, "I want to be somebody.  I won't have to worry about going to jail and not seeing my kids."  All the boys had hope for a better tomorrow.  Montrey had hopes of going to college and getting his masters and becoming a scientist. 
     The boys' families also had hope for them.  When the school was about to shut down the family stood up for their education.  They wanted action to be taken so that they could go through this program or something similar.  They knew that this program was a way for them to get an education and succeed.  When they realized their boys wouldn't have this opportunity anymore I think many of them felt heartbreak.  This makes me think of the power that the school had over the boys' education.  The school was like a gatekeeper.  The school in Baraka was an opportunity for these kids to succeed in school and get away from the violence and negative behaviors going on in their neighborhoods.  When the school closed down they had no other option but to go back to public school.  These boys had many struggles and challenges they faced while going to pubic school.  It makes me think about the privilege that some children have over others.  Some children don't have to worry about the violence or certain behaivors going on in their school or neighborhood, while others struggle with it on a day-to-day basis.  This film made me more aware of that privilege and the challenges that some students have to go through.

Salvation

Salvation is a powerful word to have in mind while watching Boys of Baraka. According to dictionary.com, one of the definitions of salvation is “a source, cause, or means of being saved or protected from harm, risk, etc.” These boys and their families were looking for salvation. They wanted something, anything, to get those boys through high school and out of the projects. Education was the way to a better life and the odds were stacked against them if something or someone didn’t come along to help them. At the thought of having only one of her songs attend Baraka, Romesh and Richard’s mom said “Don’t make one a king and the other a killer.” Those are strong words and she was obviously putting all of her hope in education as being the key to her boys’ success.

I can’t help but think back on our readings in Delpit and McIntosh, our classroom discussions, and the workshop that Katie and her group led us in. How far behind the starting line would these boys already be at such a young age?! It’s interesting that someone started this great school with fantastic intensions, but why was it in Africa? Why not somewhere far removed in the States? Why was the project abandoned instead of moved when the students were unable to return? I’m sure there was more too it, but some of the parents asked the latter question as well. Our boys’ salvation is leaving them high and dry after only one year. They saw that both years were needed to make a change in their boys. But was it? Look at the change we saw in just one year! Romesh, or maybe Richard, said when he found out that he would not be returning that “It changed part of our lives” and his brother said “I think all our lives are going to be bad now.” I think that statement tore at all of our hearts to hear that these boys had seen hope for their futures, and now they were starting to lose sight of that hope. They were letting it slip away and had not figured out that they could take charge of their futures. They did not have to leave it up to their current surroundings.

I was thinking about Erikson’s stages in connection with these boys. Our book didn’t go in to later stages, but the website I’m looking at (learningplaceonline.com) sums up the school age (6-12) and adolescence (12-18) stages well. The school age is “a very social stage of development and if we experience unresolved feelings of inadequacy and inferiority among our peers, we can have serious problems in terms of competence and self-esteem.” How could these boys not feel inadequate or inferior when they are told that only 25% of them are going to graduate high school! In the Adolescent stage, “development depends primarily upon what we do” (as opposed to what is done to us). These boys are trying to figure out where they belong in the world. Most of them know they want out of their current situation, but are trying to figure out how to get there.

(sorry for the long post!)

Promise

Thinking about the movie, I felt that the word "promise" fits really well with every boy in the movie. I think a lot of people would have entered that public school and felt defeated. I know that seeing the rowdiness of all the boys and how they seemed unruly, i felt overwhelmed. It was amazing to me that over the time of being in Kenya, each boy was growing and experiencing new things. It was also so moving how they finally began to see themselves as smart and "worth" something. I think it reminds me of how every child has "promise" or is capable of doing anything in the classroom, we as teachers just need to make sure we try to reach and connect with them.

In another sense of the word, we as teachers can make the promise to our students that we will make things accessible and try to push them out of their comfort zone into the ZPD and leave them curious about learning more. I think teachers make a promise to recognize a student's promise in the classroom.

In connection with Delpit, she writes, "All teachers must revel in the diversity of their students and that of the world outside the classroom community" (pg. 67). Although this isn't exactly related to the movie, in a different way, I think of it as very similar. It has to do with acknowledging that no child is unreachable, all have promise, all can succeed, and we have to take their experiences and help them through. We can't just give up on them or be fearful if a child has a different background than us.

Community and Chance

Thinking back about the Boys of Baraka, I feel the community, in the largest sense, that they lived in demonstrates how restraining codes of power can be. It seemed the boy’s community more often restrained them than moved them to break the codes of power they were born into. The school that was available to them was so detrimental that the parents believed the only outcome would be that their child would be in jail. All but one parent did not have enough income to move to another community to gain a better education. The boys themselves seemed to be outcasts when compared to all of the other children who lived in the community, as Richard stayed indoors during the summer with no friends. Every support system that existed in the community reproduced the socio-economical struggle that every member in the community felt. It wasn’t until the boys left their own community that they started to feel empowered. It was chance that the boys had the opportunity to go to the Baraka school. It was chance that Richard, who appeared so promising at the beginning of the movie, was left feeling hopeless and chance that the others were more successful.

Theory is insightful; however, putting theory to practice can seem daunting. Deplit argues that “students must be taught the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life.” (p.45) I feel this movie illustrates this wonderfully, as all the boys can see from their community is failure. However, relating this back to our conversation about race, I would argue that all children, regardless of their background need to understand that different codes of power exist. Change cannot happen only from one side, but from all sides.

Pride

In looking through this list I am drawn to the word pride. Pride was so visible on the faces of the boys and their families in the film and I think that the Baraka School continued to build this pride in an important way. Pride is a crucial part of learning, it is created through community recognition and support and mostly through self-recognition. Those of us who have grown up in privileged, academically oriented communities, in our attempts to be politically correct and understanding, can take our cultural relativism so far that we don’t think that poor people want to take pride in intellect or academic achievement. The Boys of Baraka show that this is clearly not true, those boys and their families wanted to succeed in school and they took pride in their academic achievements.

As we’ve read about in Delpit and other sources, people of color often have to balance utilizing codes of power with the negativity that comes from “acting white.” Delpit emphasizes the importance of teaching codes of power as well as affirming cultural/racial identities. In addition to taking pride in academic achievement, students must also be encouraged and allowed to take pride in their cultural/racial identity. The Baraka School presented a rather unique and inspiring way to nurture both of these types of pride in the boys. Imagine if the school had been in the English countryside, isolated and rustic, with the same staff and program of study. Perhaps the boys could still have felt pride in academic achievements, but what message would that have sent to the boys about who you have to be or where you have to be from in order to be smart and successful. Society and media constantly present us with images of intellect that are white so to be able to connect academics to Africa was vital to producing the pride these boys had in themselves. We can see these ideas echoed throughout Delpit and Rethinking Early Childhood Education.

QUOTE

Q: I am still a little unclear about higher order thinking exactly is

U: Through the reading and film Boys of Baraka, I feel like it clearly showed hope for students to learn despite their socio-economic status and that community withing the classroom is very important. I also feel like it is extremely important to get to know each and every one of my students and their families to better serve them and to create a cohesive community.

O: While working at a Saturday non-profit called "Project Easy," I worked with about 7 "at-risk" students. What I noticed was that as soon as I let my guard down and let them get to know me and engaged with them during their recess breaks, they began to respond to my lessons and got excited about learning. I felt a good connection and they trusted me. I had to take down my wall of power in order to get them excited about learning.

T: The treasure right now that I will take with me is the power of exposure. While doing the "I come from.." exercise I completely lost it, and when I looked around the room no one was staring or judging. I felt a safe connection, which was a valuable lesson, sometimes we need to let down our guards to let people in.

E: I feel that I would like to build my own classroom into a community, while still recognizing each student as an individual.